Liked the movie, loved the sequel!

Did the world really need "Return to the Planet of the Apes," or "Jaws 2," or "Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over"?

Can anyone keep their memories of "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers" and "Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers" from overlapping just a little?

Can anyone figure out why "Final Destination" was followed by "Final Destination 2" a few years later? Shouldn't the first have been titled "Penultimate Destination" instead?

It's no wonder that many moviegoers are wary of sequels. In most cases, follow-up movies fare less well than their predecessors at the box-office because they're usually little more than cash-ins rushed into production to capitalize on the success of the first film.

But are sequels reversing their bad reputation? "Shrek 2" is funnier - if less original - than "Shrek," and "Spider-Man 2" has been smashing box-office records as effortlessly as its hero bashes the bad guys. "Spidey bow leaves no room for competish," proclaims a headline in Variety, the entertainment trade paper.

Universal Pictures hopes "The Bourne Supremacy," opening Friday, will be an even bigger blockbuster than 2002's "The Bourne Identity." The prequel "Exorcist: The Beginning," due next month, expects to revive a story that hasn't fared well since the 1973 original. Offbeat director Richard Linklater shows that even art films can have sequels in "Before Sunset," which revisits the characters of "Before Sunrise" nine years later.

Movies such as "Spider-Man 2" and "Before Sunset" are leading some to proclaim a substantial uptick in sequel quality. Is this a lasting trend or a momentary blip?

"There were never any laws that sequels have to be bad," says Harlan Jacobson, proprietor of Talk Cinema, a network of movie clubs. "One explanation for what seems like [higher] quality may simply be that the current crop derives from more complex material than the comic-book cycle that generated sequels beginning in the late '70s."

Some would put the "Harry Potter" series in this category. "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" is widely considered the best installment in that saga so far - thanks to the willingness of director Alfonso Cuarón - replacing series originator Chris Columbus - to take the tale in spooky new directions.

Related to all this is the success of trilogies, starting with the first three "Star Wars" pictures. "The Lord of the Rings" is comprised of three movies filmed in one colossal shoot, then tweaked by director Peter Jackson before their separate release dates. In my view, the opening "Fellowship of the Ring" fails to meet a challenge facing the first chapters of all trilogies: offering a satisfying last scene while pointing the way to further installments. But everyone agrees Mr. Jackson's tweaking paid off in the long run, since the concluding "Return of the King" is the most exciting of the bunch.

Mr. Jacobson finds this another good argument for the validity of sequels.

"It may simply be that 'Lord of the Rings' at nine hours ... is the right way to treat an epic novel," he says, "instead of the gross condensation that's befallen other epics in the past. It was a terrific gamble by New Line Cinema, but they weren't making three stories - just one long story carefully [started] in the first installment and then attenuated beautifully."

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